Jane Eyre

A first-person narrative by a poor, plain, orphaned governess who refuses at every stage to accept that her position makes her worth less than the people who employ her. Published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, edited by “Currer Bell,” and read at the time as startlingly direct in its claim to moral and spiritual equality.

The secret in Thornfield’s attic — Bertha Mason, the Creole wife brought from Jamaica and confined there — is the hinge of a long argument about the novel: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) rewrote her as a protagonist, and that reading is now as standard in classrooms as Brontë’s original.

Context: Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) published Jane Eyre in 1847, followed by Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853). It was an immediate commercial success.

Connections

• Charlotte Brontë — the author.
• Emily Brontë — her sister.
• Wuthering Heights — published the same year, also on this list.
• Literature